Error Accessing a Table Row or Column — Word VBA Reference (2026)

Reference

When you try to access an individual row or column in a drawn table, a run-time error may occur if the table is not uniform. For example, the following instruction posts an error if the first table in the active document does not have the same number of rows in each column.

Sub RemoveTableBorders() 
 ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Rows(1).Borders.Enable = False 
End Sub

You can avoid this error by first selecting the cells in a column or row using the SelectColumn method or the SelectRow method. After the selection is made, use the Cells property with the Selection object. The following example selects the first row in the first document table. The Cells property is used to access the selected cells (all the cells in the first row) so that borders can be removed.

Sub RemoveTableBorders() 
 ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Cell(1, 1).Select 
 With Selection 
 .SelectRow 
 .Cells.Borders.Enable = False 
 End With 
End Sub

The following example selects the first column in the first document table. The For Each…Next loop is used to add text to each cell in the selection (all the cells in the first column).

Sub AddTextToTableCells() 
 Dim intCell As Integer 
 Dim oCell As Cell
ActiveDocument.Tables(1).Cell(1, 1).Select   Selection.SelectColumn   intCell = 1
For Each oCell In Selection.Cells   oCell.Range.Text = "Cell " & intCell   intCell = intCell + 1   Next oCell  End Sub

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